What is Ping Pong Diplomacy?

When the communists came to power in China in 1949, all
relations between the United States and China ceased. However, in the late sixties, after
almost thirty years with no communication, China was looking to gain the United
States as an ally when things became tense along their Russian and Middle Eastern
borders 2. At the Table Tennis World Championship in Nagoya, Japan, A
number of coincidental meetings between players helped to stimulate
interactions between the two countries in a friendly, non-political manner. For
example, Chinese and American players ran into each other on a yacht when
touring Japan, one player asked the Chinese when it was going to their turn to
visit since, at the time, both England and Canada were invited to visit.
Remarks like this were noted by Wang Zhaoyun (deputy head of the delegation)
and reported back to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. After numerous negative
responses, China finally agreed to a visit from the U.S. team scheduled for April 1971. The media
surrounding the visit was surprisingly positive with headlines reading,
"US Table Tennis Team Greeted Warmly in Peking," (Washington Post
11 April 1971) and "Peking Rarity: Americans-Chinese Amazed, Delighted at
US Visitors," (Washington Post 12 April 1971) 7 . Since this visit had gone well, Nixon removed the twenty year
embargo act on China and invited the Chinese to come visit the next
year. Then Republican House leader Gerald Ford states that "... the
visits were just what American diplomacy needed... Ping-Pong was an outside
force that shook up the State Department bureaucrats and their static views of
the world." Much more than just a sport in China, this was the first
time that a significant change was made politically through sports competition
and ordinary people 2.